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The catfight between former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and his replacement, Reince Priebus, has reached screech level, with Steele belittling the party's new focus on minorities as old news. Appearing on the "Andrea Tantaros Show," a nationally syndicated radio show, Steele called the GOP establishment that on Monday unveiled a $10 million minority outreach effort a bunch of "numb nuts" for ignoring the plan he instituted four years ago. Steele also sounded ready to beat up Priebus. Asked by Tantaros who would win in a cage fight, Steele said, "Oh, no question, I would clean his clock." How?...

I really hope you hold accountable every conservative writer you see in the next few days freaking out over “Obama winning Ohio!” because this is ridiculously apocryphal; anyone who has ever lived in the buckeye state should know it is going to award its 18 electoral votes to Mitt Romney this year and it won’t even be close. Look for Romney’s win to be a 54% to 46% blowout for Republicans. That’s because Ohio is not a swing state this time around…since Obama’s deliberate push to the Left over the last four years has forced a pendulum correction shift that...

It's well known that Ohio is the key, and that Ohio state polls seem not to follow the national trend (Romney should be leading by at least 3-4, no polls showing him better than tie instead). RCP average in 2008 missed the real result in many states by several points (2.1 in Ohio, 2.5 in Indiana, 3 in Pennsylvania, 3.5 in Colorado, 5 in Arizona e 6 in Nevada) so maybe it's just due to the margin of error but it's worrying anyway. Anyway if Romney loses Ohio he has to win Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire (if he...

Mitt Romney is to travel to Wisconsin, a state Barack Obama won in a 14-point blowout four years ago, as the Republican candidate's surging campaign seeks to expand the 'chessboard' into previously safe Democratic territory. At the same time, the Romney campaign has bought television advertising in the Boston market, which reaches screens in New Hampshire, a state Obama won by almost 10 points in 2008. Asked whether Romney himself would be visiting Wisconsin in the closing days of the race, Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior Romney adviser, said: 'Yes. Paul Ryan was just in Pittsburgh. We'll be back in Wisconsin,...

Former Governor Tommy Thompson and Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin are in a near tie in Wisconsin’s down-to-the-wire U.S. Senate race. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Wisconsin Voters, taken the night of the candidates’ second debate, shows Thompson with 48% support to Baldwin’s 46%. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and another three percent (3%) are undecided.

While all national attention is focused — indeed riveted — on the seven to nine swing or battleground states, a major shift is taking place in the rest of the country: Voters are turning off Obama and onto Romney. In the forty states where the Obama campaign has not spread toxic negative ads against Romney, the Republican is gaining by leaps and bounds and will likely carry a bunch of “non-swing” normally blue states. Specifically, Romney is now three points ahead in Pennsylvania, one point behind in Michigan, and only two points behind in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Together, these four...

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that President Barack Obama is facing a tough re-election race because "impatient" Americans haven't fully recognized an economy on the mend. Campaigning for Obama in Green Bay, Wis., Clinton urged voters to stay the course as more signs of a recovery sink in. Clinton said voters should judge Obama on the past three years, in which private sector job growth has made up for lost ground. "This shouldn't be a race," Clinton said. "The only reason it is, is because Americans are impatient on things not made before yesterday and they don't understand why...

LA CROSSE, Wis. - A day after going toe-to-toe with Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in a spirited and oftentimes feisty debate, Vice President Joe Biden took the fight to his GOP rival's home state. Speaking to a crowd packed with 2,000 people at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, Biden tried to follow up on his Thursday night performance. This time, with a particularly direct appeal to women. "If anyone had a doubt about what's at stake in this election, when it comes to women's rights, and the Supreme Court, I am sure they were settled last night," Biden...

This year’s cast of GOP convention speakers could be future rivals, each jockeying for prime positioning in case 2016 opens up, Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said on MSNBC Monday night. The emerging five: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Paul Ryan. “All of these people in their own right are people who may have presidential aspirations and the ability to run a formidable campaign,” he said. “You maybe see the next generation of rivalries in the Republican Party.… You may see them all previewing what’s going...

This week's GOP convention will be a striking testament to the remarkable prominence three Republicans from Wisconsin have achieved in national politics. Reince Priebus will preside as chairman of the Republican National Committee. His good friend Scott Walker is among a handful of governors with prime-time speaking slots. And their good friend Paul Ryan will be introduced to the nation as Mitt Romney's running mate. "It's kind of weird," Ryan told me this summer about their rapid national ascent, a phenomenon Walker and Priebus call the "Cheesehead Revolution." Is it just weird happenstance that Wiscon sin has in short order...

Lost amid the daily uproar over embattled Senate candidate Todd Akin's refusal to drop his Missouri bid is a growing effort by the GOP to spotlight a tightening presidential race in the Upper Midwest. The Republican National Committee has pounced on new polling data in Michigan and Wisconsin that show President Obama losing ground to Mitt Romney after the latter announced Paul Ryan as his running mate. And in what may -- or may not -- have been a coincidence, Vice President Joe Biden made a pair of campaign stops in Minnesota on Tuesday and will make several more in...

Fox News in Detroit reports that a new poll shows Mitt Romney pulling substantially ahead of Barack Obama in Michigan. Romney is a native of the state, but it looks from this poll as if adding Paul Ryan to the ticket pushed him over the top. The poll, produced by Foster McCollum White Baydoun, showed Romney leading Obama in Michigan by 47 to 43 percent, which is just outside the poll’s 2.35 percent margin of error. Paul Ryan was said to make Michigan voters more likely to vote for Romney by an 8 percent margin. Ryan’s budget proposals, which are...

PPP's first Wisconsin poll since Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate finds him taking a small lead over Barack Obama in the state, 48-47. That represents a 7 point shift from PPP's last look at the state in early July, which found Obama ahead 50-44. The biggest change Ryan's selection seems to have brought about is the unification of the GOP. Romney's gone from a 78 point lead with Republicans on our last poll (87-9) to now an 88 point lead with them (93-5). There's also been a tightening with independents. Obama still has a 4 point...

There were approximately 3000 people immediately here in the square, reporters noted there were more people at the events Palin and Gingrich held at The Villages. I’m told about 5K people were in the crowd when Romney spoke but I wasn’t here and can’t provide a comparison. One official told a reporter said there were 10K total today, outside the clean area, but we’re skeptical about that estimate. Here is a slightly tweaked version of the Medicare verbate I sent out earlier. **10:33:35 AM Like a lot of Americans, when I think about Medicare it’s not just a program, its...

True, Mitt Romney’s new nominee for vice president possesses certain attributes that Sarah Palin lacked, namely a wonky intellect and speaking voice that does not sound like nails on chalkboard. But Paul Ryan may actually turn out to be a worse veep choice than Ms. Palin for several reasons. 1. Ryan further delays, and perhaps permanently scraps, Romney’s move to the center. Eric Fehrnstrom, a top Romney aide, signaled that the candidate intended to reinvent himself as a moderate after winning the primary season. But we never got that promised Etch-a-Sketch moment and now, likely, never will. How is Romney...

THE PAUL Ryan vice presidential pick was a very strategic move on the part of the Mitt Romney campaign. This year’s presidential election will come down to three things: the economy, demographics and fundraising. Obama is obviously weak on the economy but has a strong advantage on demographics – voter support of various groups – that was shown in the last presidential election and is keeping him up in the polls this time. So far, this election has not been about the economy – otherwise Obama would be far down in the polls. Fundraising could end up being the difference...

A senior political adviser to President Barack Obama is likening Mitt Romney’s selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate to John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. David Axelrod tells “CBS This Morning” he recalls “that kind of excitement four years ago” when McCain presented Palin to the country as his choice for vice president. Axelrod says in Monday’s interview he thinks the selection of Ryan, who is popular with tea party figures — as Palin was — is “not going to be a plus for Mr. Romney.”(continued)

Anne is at the Romney-Ryan rally in Waukesha. She says the crowd is so large they had to move the rally from indoors to outdoors to accomodate all the people. We’re still trying to confirm the crowd size estimate. (Campaign says 10,000, which is similar to what Anne was told.) Apparently three protesters managed to interrupt the speeches. Here’s a tweet of one heckler. Here are some photos Anne sent along. The line of car seemed to go on forever: The crowd was large:And Anne managed to get pretty close to the stage

Gov. Scott Walker gave vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan a resounding endorsement today and joked it's another sign of a "cheesehead revolution." "If there was a Paul Ryan fan club, I'd be president," Walker said the morning after he learned Mitt Romney picked Ryan as his running mate. Walker indicated he knew Ryan would be the nominee last night. Walker told reporters in Wauwatosa that he and Ryan "texted back and forth" last night and that as Walker said his nightly prayers last evening, "at the top of my list was Paul Ryan and his family." Walker also said he...

Liberal pundits are already fanning out in force to attack and discredit Paul Ryan. Michael Tomasky, who recently wrote a Newsweek cover story calling Mitt Romney a “wimp,” has now decided that Romney’s bold move is “a terrible choice” because Ryan has proven himself to be an extremist on budget issues. No doubt there are many Democrats rubbing their hands in glee in contemplation of reviving some version of the ad that featured an actor playing Paul Ryan pushing a grandmother in a wheelchair off a cliff. But the smarter ones are worried. First, if Ryan is an extremist and...

Mitt Romney announced Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate this morning, giving us a 2012 GOP ticket that could roll back much of the progress we've seen toward full equality. Ryan’s voting record in Congress – and his public remarks – make it clear that he does not support the dignity of LGBT Americans; a matter on which he is out-of-touch with the majority of Americans – even those within the Republican Party. Paul Ryan does not support LGBT families, and has voted against allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt. He voted against hate crime protections. He...

If ever there were a more descriptive sentence on the issue of gun control, and why curbing Second Amendment rights only serves to hurt or even kill law-abiding citizens, I have yet to see it. Tucked away in a Huffington Post article about the motivation behind the horrific shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, is this statement (h/t Ben Howe): "The dead included temple President Satwant Singh Kaleka, who was shot as he tried to fend off the shooter with a butter knife." Incredible. Perhaps as Boortz said in regards to the Aurora shooting: Too bad there wasn't someone...

States that traditionally have been considered Democrat strongholds are now moving toward Mitt Romney, Bay Buchanan, a senior adviser to Romney, tells Newsmax. “When we came into this general election, it was assumed that the battleground states would be the same ones that they were in the past,” says Buchanan, who was treasurer of the U.S. under President Reagan. “Well what’s happened is a lot of the Democratic states are now looking like Mitt Romney could win them. They are now swing states.” That means that Democrats have to focus on an additional five states: New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and...

Mitt Romney has pushed the 2012 electoral battleground into union-friendly territory — putting organized labor on the defensive in states it typically has little trouble holding. A recent demoralizing election loss in Wisconsin and simmering disappointment with President Obama poses further challenges for labor to rally its troops this election season. Among the 10 or so swing states where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is battling President Obama, about half are populous, union-heavy states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, where in most polls Mr. Obama holds precarious single-digits poll leads. Mr. Romney is performing particularly strongly in Ohio...

Something strange is going on in the election campaign. Former president Bill Clinton seems to look for every opportunity to undermine the sitting president of his own party. His former political aides publish a memorandum saying the White House message strategy is failing. The morning reports have the press corps dismissing President Obama's supposedly major speech in Ohio Thursday as a windy nothing-burger. Everyone agrees that the president has had one bad day after another, beginning more or less with Gov. Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin recall election, the first governor in American history to survive a recall effort....

The “if it feels good, do it” school of political decision-making experienced yet another painful lesson in its ill-fated effort to recall Wisconsin’s GOP Gov. Scott Walker this week. If ever there was a case of a terrible idea poorly executed, this was it. Putting aside whether Walker should or shouldn’t have been elected governor to begin with, or whether he has or has not made wise decisions or, for that matter, whether Walker should or shouldn’t have taken after the public employees’ unions, the recall effort was a mistake. The exit poll of 2,245 voters conducted for the television...

First let me say, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Lt Governor Rebecca Kleefisch are real heroes. They stood up to armed union thugs, suffered death threats, and other acts of violence, just to save the state they love so much. Governor Walker has a plan for Wisconsin that works. He’s taken a $3 billion budget deficit and turned it into a projected $275.1 million surplus on June 30, 2012 and a $154.5 million surplus on June 30, 2013. That ain’t chickenfeed! By short-stopping the union thug bosses and ending collective bargaining for government workers, Governor Walker was able to save...

It’s been a pitiful sight – a sad week for progressives and “Big Union” Democrat-shilling thugs. In the wake of Tuesday night’s devastating recall smackdown in Wisconsin, tens of thousands of “Occupy” hippies across the nation have simply been too depressed to get stoned and not look for work. On Wednesday the White House released President Obama’s detailed itinerary through October: 1.Worry 2.Lie 3.Obfuscate 4.Golf 5.Fundraise 6.Worry Indeed, the president has much to worry about. No honest politico can deny that liberals’ Wisconsin debacle likely represents a shadow of things to come – a precursor to November. Recall DNC Chair...

It is far too early to predict the election returns for November. Forecasts today are subject to dramatic change based on events yet to happen, but: If the election were held today I now believe Mitt Romney and the Republicans would win it because more of their voters would be motivated to vote and more of their large donors are motivated to donate. Romney would win the White House with a narrow victory. Democrats would gain House seats but fall short of regaining control. Even if Senate Democrats retain nominal control they would not be able to pass significant legislation...

One of the things that sets Sarah Palin apart from the herd of politicians out there, is she’s for real. She’s actually had to work for a living. She’s a self-made, successful woman. The American people relate to her, because she can relate to us. She is, in fact, one of us. When it comes to taking on the corrupt union thugs, Sarah again separates herself from the pack. As a former union member herself, in a family of union members, she understands it’s the corrupt, greedy union leadership, and some hand picked thugs, not the rank and file workers...

Sarah Palin had this to say after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was declared the winner of Tuesday’s recall election: “Obama’s goose is cooked.” “I think that the Democrats there understand that the president’s no-show represents the fact that Obama’s goose is cooked,” Palin told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News soon after networks called Walker the projected winner of the historic recall. She was referring to President Barack Obama’s decision not to campaign for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. As she denounced Obama’s “hopey changey stuff”, the former Alaska governor continued: “More and more Americans realize that what Wisconsin has just...

By the time you read this post, we can hope that pro-life Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will have rebuffed a recall election. Gov. Walker is a long-time hero for the pro-life cause, having begun his advocacy as the student pro-life leader at Marquette University, the same entity which conducted the poll. His opponent, Tom Barrett, has an extensive voting history in favor of abortion, having voted for taxpayer funding of abortion and for partial-birth abortion when he was a member of Congress. But either way, not so long ago it would have been heresy to think that Wisconsin was “in...

When Minnesota fifth-grader Tyler Sullivan skipped school to attend an campaign event with Barack Obama Friday, the president wrote his teacher a note which read: “Please excuse Tyler.... He was with me!” So what explains Obama’s unexcused absence from the Wisconsin recall election? The president was just a short helicopter ride away from the Badger State this weekend. He attended three events in Minnesota and then traveled to nearby Chicago to take some time off in his home state. But he didn’t come to Wisconsin. In fact, Obama hasn’t set food in Wisconsin for months. Why? The answer is inescapable:...

De Pere - Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, appearing at the same Brown County dairy breakfast as his opponent, Gov. Scott Walker, said Sunday the governor's reforms were not working for the middle class. "It's so important to have a governor focusing on jobs here," he said. "Scott Walker's reforms are not working for the middle class. They may be working for the wealthiest people in the state, but for those students struggling to get out of college with mountains of debt and their tuition rising, it's simply not working." Barrett and Walker were within a few dozen feet of each...

Not too long ago pundits were arguing that Mitt Romney’s path to 270 electoral votes was “narrow.” We didn’t buy it. Lo and behold, conventional wisdom has now changed. The Associated Press writes: “Warning signs for Obama on tight path to 270.” The AP explains: Obama’s new worries about North Carolina and Wisconsin offer opportunities for Republican Mitt Romney, who must peel off states Obama won in 2008 if he’s to cobble together the 270 electoral votes needed to oust the incumbent in November. Iowa, which kicked off the campaign in January, is now expected to be tight to the...

On Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz addressed her party’s prospects of reclaiming the Wisconsin governor’s mansion, calling the battle to recall Gov. Scott Walker a “dry run” for the November election. Current polls show Walker with a commanding lead over his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. But that’s not deterring Wasserman Schultz from promoting her party’s prospects in the contest. “I think that he [Barrett] has a real opportunity to win,” Wasserman Schultz said. “We have put our considerable grassroots resources behind him. All of the Obama for America and state...

Restoring our founding values to make Wisconsin great again! Mission To make Wisconsin better than it was yesterday! Description "We, the people of Wisconsin, have every right to reclaim our rightful place in history. We will make this a Wisconsin we can believe in. More than 162 years ago, our ancestors believed in the power of hard work and determination. They envisioned a new state with limitless potential. Now, it is our time to once again seize that potential. We will do so at this turning point in our history by restoring limited government that fosters prosperity for today and...

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett won Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary by a wide margin setting up a rematch of the 2010 Wisconsin governor's race. Barrett will face Governor Scott Walker in a recall election June 5. Barrett held 57% of the vote over next closest competitor former Dane County Commissioner Kathleen Falk's 35%. WPR programming note: Tom Barrett joins Kathleen Dunn on the Ideas Network Wednesday at 9:30 am. Madison firefigher and union leader Mahlon Mitchell won in the Democratic Lt. Gov. race to challenge incumbent Republican Rebecca Kleefisch. State senate recall candidates Kristen Dexter, Lori Compas and Donna Seidel survived...

In a wide ranging interview with Milwaukee Story, Eric Hovde answered a variety of questions primarily regarding the US and world economies.

The state elections board voted Tuesday morning to allow six Republicans to run as Democrats in upcoming recall elections against Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, and four Republican senators. The Government Accountability Board said that the six candidates could not be blocked from running under Wisconsin law. The vote followed a board staff recommendation in a memo Monday that elections officials did not have the legal authority to keep the six fake Democrats, or "protest candidates," from the ballot. The Republican Party of Wisconsin recruited six candidates — Gladys Huber, Isaac Weix, Gary Ellerman, Tamra Lyn Varebrook, James...

Just a Facebook page started to give conservative women an opportunity to express their support for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Don’t be surprised if the county-by-county map of today’s Republican primary for President looks exactly like the one for the GOP primary for governor two years ago. Mark Neumann, who is also running for the U.S. Senate this year, won 42 of the state’s 72 counties. Just judging by visual appearances, Neumann did quite well. But of course, those maps only mean something if deer and trees could vote. Since they don’t, the only thing that matters is votes of real people. And in the Republican Party, most of those persons live in southeastern Wisconsin, specifically the three-counties of Waukesha,...

Poll along the right hand side of the page:Poll Will the John Doe investigation become a major factor in whether Scott Walker wins or loses the (assumed) recall election? Yes. He will be held accountable and will lose because of it. 38% Yes. But he will still win for many other reasons. 6% No. The investigation will show Walker did nothing wrong and he will win. 21% No. He will lose no matter what the investigation finds. 36% Total Votes: 11667

On Sunday, the Green Bay Press-Gazette put a link on its Facebook page to an Associated Press story detailing state aid cuts to organizations that help victims of sexual abuse. After that story was posted, a reader left a comment expressing outrage that the state would cut such aid and asserted that perhaps Governor Scott Walker’s wife or children should become victims of sexual assault so the governor could see the how devastating the state aid cuts really are.

"My Governor's a Jedi, Wisconsin for the Win!" Video: Star Wars Parody in support of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Progressives are on the move once more. Wisconsin lit the spark, as workers, students, teachers and farmers occupied the state’s capitol in February and launched recall elections that sobered conservative Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies. Occupy Wall Street turned that spark into a conflagration that swept the nation. Last week, in Ohio and Maine and even Mississippi, voters overwhelmingly rejected efforts to trample worker rights, constrict the right to vote and roll back women’s rights. These electoral victories have led pundits to wonder whether Occupy Wall Street will imitate the Tea Party and stand candidates for office....

Regan Cowan Rather than recall him... Can we kill him instead? Just curious.

Republican recall candidates are getting help on the campaign trail these days from Tommy Thompson. But the real question; Is Tommy running for U.S. Senate? There appears to be little doubt that Tommy Thompson will run for the Senate. He tells TODAY'S TMJ4's Charles Benson he has regretted every day not running in 2010 and he's sure sounding like a candidate in 2012. When asked if he is going to run, Thompson said "As I've told everybody, I'm very serious about it." If you are wondering if Tommy Thompson is really serious this time about running, here are two reasons...

Controversial Film about Governor Sarah Palin Premiered Last Week to Enthusiastic Sold-Out Crowds Film highlights Gov. Palin’s Wisconsin Challenge to Obama: “Mr. President, Game On!” Director Steve Bannon to Personally Attend Milwaukee Screenings and Meet Audience Members. The Wisconsin Chapter of Organize4Palin (O4P) today announced the greater Milwaukee area premiere of "The Undefeated" on Friday, July 22nd at the AMC Theater in Wauwatosa. This limited engagement premiere will run through Thursday July 28. The recently released film about Governor Sarah Palin's rise from obscurity to national prominence opened to a successful debut in ten selected markets nationwide last weekend. The...

Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker. Go, Scott! GO!